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Euro on tap

Javier Gimeno

Professor of Strategy

Biography

Javier Gimeno is Professor of Strategy at INSEAD (Fontainebleau campus), in France, where he serves as Dean of Faculty for the global school. He holds the Aon Dirk Verbeek Chair in International Risk and Strategic Management, and the Sauvage Family Chair for Academic Excellence.

A Spanish national, he holds a PhD degree in strategic management from Purdue University. Since 2001, he has taught strategy and industry and competitive analysis at INSEAD at all levels – MBA, Executive MBA, Ph.D., and executive programmes for leading global companies. He has performed multiple leadership roles within INSEAD, including Dean of Executive MBA programmes, Chair of the Strategy department, Chair of the Faculty Evaluation Committee, Academic Director of the INSEAD European Competitiveness Initiative, and Academic Director of the Ph.D. programme.

Javier's research focuses on understanding competitive strategy decisions, and how these decisions lead to competitive interactions and performance consequences. He has done research and developed pedagogical materials in industries such as travel and transportation (airlines), mobile telecommunication services, energy, and computer equipment. His current research integrates a risk management perspective on the analysis of strategic opportunities.

Javier’s research has been published in the top academic journals in strategy and management and has received numerous awards from leading academic and practitioner associations. For instance, his dissertation on multi-market competition in the US airline industry received the prize to the best doctoral dissertation in strategy in its year. He received several Best Paper Awards from the Academy of Management for his research on entrepreneurship, and the Blackrock/National Association of Corporate Directors Best Paper Award for research on strategy and corporate governance. He has taken editorial responsibilities in journals such as Organization Science and Strategy Science.

Javier has been a leader in several major professional associations. He was a member of the Board of Governors of the Academy of Management, an association of over 18,000 management academics worldwide, and chaired the Strategic Management division, one of the largest. More recently, Javier has been very involved with the Strategic Management Society, a global association of strategy academics, practitioners and consultants. He was the Chairman of the Strategic Management Society International Conference in 2006, served on the Board of Directors from 2010-2015, and recently completed his term as President of the Society.

Javier lives in Fontainebleau with his wife, and enjoys running in the Fontainebleau forest, scuba diving somewhere warm, reading, learning, and having good conversations.

Latest posts

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Strategy

The “Frenemy” Effect: When Strategic Alliances Go South

Javier Gimeno

How to fuel – and cool – competitive wars.

Strategy

Where are Europe’s gazelles?

Javier Gimeno

In business, longevity has merit. Research shows that about a third or more of start ups discontinue within the first three years. Even for those that survive, most remain small, and unable to grow beyond their initial niche. Surviving for a long time requires dealing with ownership and management transitions, new technologies, new market trends, and new competitors. So, it is impressive when companies manage to remain vibrant for decades or even centuries.

Entrepreneurship

Nokia and Apple: What’s market power got to do with it?

Javier Gimeno

As Charlie’s previous post highlights, the flip of market dominance between Nokia and Apple has indeed been a powerful illustration of the unprecedented dynamism of modern markets. We tend to learn a lot from such outlier events. Why did a successful organization like Nokia lose its ability to innovate? Why did they miss the market new trends? How could Apple, a complete outsider to the mobile industry, capture such a dominant position?
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Leadership & Organisations

Yielding to earnings pressure

Javier Gimeno

A triumphant Michael O’Leary, CEO of Ryanair, appeared in the Financial Times last week. Given the bleak state of the European airline industry, you might wonder what was the cause of celebration. Ryanair had announced a pre-tax profit of €15.5 million for the third quarter, against analyst consensus estimates of €16 million net loss. This lifted their full-year profit guidance, and share prices went up accordingly.

Leadership & Organisations

Value Creation Logic – Not Budget Logic – Is Key to Successful Turnarounds

Javier Gimeno

Profits come from the gap between revenues and costs. So it is not surprising that when a downturn hits (typically in the form of lower demand and revenues), the typical emergency response is to develop plans to (a) increase revenues, and (b) decrease costs. How this is done, however, explains the difference between successful turnaround strategies and incremental, cosmetic responses.

Strategy

A good strategy can turn crisis into opportunity

Javier Gimeno

According to the press, we are in the middle of the “ten days to save the Euro”. Although this may sound a bit sensational (it’s not clear how any country could exit the Euro without incurring economic suicide), it is evident that we are in the middle of unprecedented financial uncertainty in Europe, and that business leaders need to consider the impact of possible scenarios for their concerns.